Telangana 1-day tally at 1,892, nearly 90% in GHMC

HYDERABAD: Telangana on Friday saw a massive spike to register a record single-day surge of 1,892 novel coronavirus cases. It was just behind Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Delhi on Friday in number of new cases. Eight more persons have died across the state, taking the toll to 283. The state with a caseload of 20,462 is seventh overall in the country.
Greater Hyderabad, a cause for concern, for the first time crossed the mark of 1,000 cases in a single day with 1,658 cases, while Warangal rural district, which always had low numbers till now, had 41 cases. Authorities also released 1,126 people, taking the cumulative recovered count to 10,195 people.
But in a significant move, the medical health department announced that 2,672 Covid-19 cases declared by a private lab were questionable as the lab reported 71.7% positivity rate and excluded the numbers.
Telangana home min discharged from hosp
The lab tested 3,726 samples and declared 2,672 as positive cases. The tested negatives are only 962 out of 3,726 samples. The issue needs to be evaluated by an expert committee and until then data of the said lab has been kept under abeyance,” the bulletin released by the medical health department said.
Fingers were raised early on the day with many questioning the discrepancy in the number of cases shown in the bulletin and the cases updated on dashboard of the government. As per the dashboard, Telangana had 23,774 cases by Thursday and government had announced 18,750 cases. However, in the bulletin released by the government they questioned validity of the tests by a private lab.
Home minister Mahmood Ali was also discharged from a private hospital along with his grandson on Friday. He thanked all ministers and vice-president Venkaiah Naidu for calling him to know his condition. He advised public not to drink cold water, eat healthy home-cooked food and maintain social distance. He said that there was no need to panic and seek treatment in case of symptoms. Reports said that a woman MLA also tested positive on Friday.
After three TV actors, another actor also tested positive on Friday sending his colleagues into tizzy. Health department, meanwhile, gave directions to district hospitals of Gadwal, Karimnagar, Suryapet, Asifabad, Medak, Government General Hospital of Nizamabad to conduct Covid-19 tests using TrueNat chips on CBNAAT platforms.